the girl who obsessively loves everything.

Tag: swath

What? Don’t you own a pair of nerd pants? I suppose if you mean LITERALLY, then neither do I. But if I found some & had money, I would totally buy some. Whatever they may look like. My figurative nerd pants get worn a LOT, however. This week I’m pretty much nerding out 24/7 over something or another, so obviously I want to share with you, my lovely readers.

COMICS

I finally started reading some comics other than Saga (but I did re-read Saga vol. 1 for the AdultBooklr graphic novel read-along for July…). What I’m reading now:

With the release of issue #22 (finally), it seemed like a good time to pick up this series. Did not hurt that Amazon ran a flash sale on the Kindle version of this volume for only $2.99 in their “pre-Prime-Day-madness”. Honestly, the deals leading up to Prime Day were so much better than the ACTUAL prime day deals. But we don’t need to talk about that. Anyway, this is freaking GREAT. And I’m only one issue into it.

I have been hearing about Sex Criminals since the first day I picked up a comic book. I’m only about halfway through this volume, but it’s amazing. And the art is gorgeous-o. It’s a totally different kind of storytelling than I have ever read before. It’s more conversational & I’m really enjoying it.

MOVIES

So, obviously, we saw Ant-Man. I really liked it. My review from yesterday breaks it down, but I had to plug it here anyway 🙂

SWATH

I’m PRETTY sure I’ve mentioned SWATH before, but we just had yet another tournament over the weekend, and I usually ride that high for a couple weeks afterwards. This month’s tournaments were: The Tournament of Aces (Pilots from all different fandoms battling it out in Gunstar crafts from StarFox), The Tournament of Sidekicks (self-explanatory), and an all-cartoon tournament we called The Big Papa Crowley Tournament. I live-tweeted the madness & have started compiling a highlight reel from the evening.

In addition to the tournament, I have spent the last couple days working on getting our Tumblr page up and running, so y’all can follow us for nerdy goodness (shameless self-promotion…deal with it). If you’re super confused over what we do, check out the about page.

ORGANIZATION

I’m a nerd for organization & stationery. It’s certainly a different kind of nerdiness, but totes still counts. I bought myself a Passion Planner last week, which I talked about on last week’s list. Well, it arrived & I could not love it more. I’ll do a whole post about it once I’ve used it consistently for more than 2 days, but right now I’m 150% onboard with Passion Planner. Here’s my first two days-worth of planning notes. I’m using it to track what I have actually DONE rather than planning out my days in advance. This way I can go back & see where I’m wasting all my time & hopefully make myself more productive in the long haul.

In addition to the Passion Planner, I ordered these disposable fountain pens by Pilot and holy crap if they aren’t my favorite pens I’ve ever used. Shout out to singingktp for finding them in a stationery shop & gushing about them to me. They write so smoothly & don’t bleed through even cheap notebook paper (unless you really saturate it). If you’re into pens, get these. Seriously.

Annnd that’s about it for this week. I’d love to hear anything you guys have been up to lately! I know I’ve been super MIA, but I’m working on getting myself ahead of the ball with posts so there’s no more radio silence on my end!

YAY, FRIDAY! Am I right? Today’s 5 Fandom Friday topic is “5 Nerdiest Things You’ve Ever Done”. I’ve got a list long enough to fill a notebook, as many of my friends would attest to, but these are my favorites:

1. Got a Star Wars tattoo.

This is a memorial tattoo for one of my best friends from high school, who committed suicide in 2009. It’s a really dark mark on my past, but the tattoo makes me happy every time I think about it. I always remember the fun times we had & how we bonded over Star Wars. I still remember the first time I ever learned that the Expanded Universe existed & he owned all the books. We spent a lot of time just hanging out in his bedroom & him giving me major Star Wars lessons.

2. Participated in a SWATH Tournament.

SWATH was started by our group of friends like a zillion years ago (2007). I started going to tournaments in 2009, when I began dating my now-husband. We build tournament brackets (usually at random) filled with characters from comic books, video games, anime, movies, etc., and then the battles begin. We’ll sit around for hours arguing (sometimes very heatedly) over who would win each battle, including the exact method the character would use to defeat his/her opponent. Sometimes things get REALLY creative and/or characters from previous battles will get involved in what we like to call “SWATH moments”. Then we continue moving through the bracket until we have a champion.

3. Joined SWATH Forums.

Lol is this a cop-out? I don’t care. I just joined the SWATH forums this year, and it’s been an entirely different experience than the live tournaments I’ve been going to for 6 years. There are online battles that run through the SWATH “season” when we have no live tournaments going on. We also just talk about all kinds of nerdy shit, including Cons, movies, comics, and random randomness. I love those guys. Also, I made a forum banner. But I kind of hate it. Thoughts?

4. My last B&N Purchase.

I’m only including this because it’s the first time someone other than my friends has openly commented on my nerdiness. I went in specifically for my copy of Fangirl’s Guide to the Galaxy, and when I couldn’t find it I asked an associate for help. It took her about 15 minutes to find it in their system because she couldn’t figure out whether “Fangirl” had a space in it or not *oy*. Anyway, she led me back to Women’s Studies (really?), which is where that book is shelved & took one look at it and then at me and asked “is this for you?”…ummmm, yes. Yes it is. Thank you for your help.

I proceeded to browse for another 20 minutes or so & then I grabbed the Star Wars issue of Vanity Fair (because, come ON!) and went to the check-out, where she was the only register open. As she was ringing me up she says “wow, you really are a nerd, huh?”. Damn straight, lady. Nice to meet you.

5. Started this blog!

Let’s be honest with ourselves, it’s a pretty nerdy thing to want to spend your days writing about nerdy things. Obvi. But it’s by far one of the best things that has happened to me in ages. Because you’re here, reading it. And that’s pretty effing cool.

**EDIT**

BONUS! I just remembered one more that I have to share!!

6. Avengers Marathon.

When the first Avengers movie came out in 2012, our local theater did a whole marathon of all the Marvel movies that had been released up to that point. It started at like 11AM on a Thursday, so I had to take the day off work. The marathon consisted of: Iron Man, Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and finally the midnight premiere of The Avengers (13 hours of film, 15 hours spent in the theater). This was probably one of the best days of my life – just hanging out in the movie theater, watching comic book movies with my friends & getting 25% off concessions! Oh, and smuggling in tiny bottles of alcohol to dump into my Icee didn’t hurt, either. ❤

I had the best birthday last week, you guys. [Caution: Random blabbering ahead.]

Thursday was a non-stop kinda day. I got to work around 7:00 & had a huge meeting across town until noon. That wasn’t an ideal way to start my birthday, BUT it did include a free catered fajita buffet, so it definitely wasn’t a bad thing. Plus then I got to call it a day after lunch, which was perfect.

I went home & got changed into my midnight movie uniform (Marvel tank top, duh) before heading out to meet up with some friends who were sweet enough to invite me to their lunch date. I was super stuffed from the catered lunch, but figured the last thing I should be doing on my birthday was just sitting on my couch waiting for the action to start. SO, I ordered a gigantic margarita & had a great time talking Star Wars & Avengers while they had lunch.

Before the party could really get going, hubby & I had to take kiddo to her Kindergarten open house (moment of silence, please, cuz my baby starts kindergarten in the fall T_T). We had no idea what to expect, but it was mostly an informational thing where the faculty described to us the daily routine of the kindergarten class. I was utterly shocked at the level of autonomy they expect out of kindergarteners. Maybe I’m underestimating my kid, but I am super nervous to have her be responsible for getting herself on the right bus & off at the right stop or serving herself lunch from the buffet line. Eek. Oh well. We’ve got all summer to work on it, right? Plus, look at that face. She’s gonna be just fine.

We had about 15 minutes to get home, get kiddo changed for dance, send her off with my mom, and get ourselves out of the house to meet our friends at the bar for our Avengers Pre-Game/ my pseudo-birthday party. It was close, but we managed. 🙂

From there, it was all about the good times. No responsibilities, celebrating great friends, and getting completely pumped for the movie by indulging in very heated debates about comics & superheroes. Not that that’s new for us, by any means. Have you checked out SWATH yet? That is kind of our default setting. #shameless plug #sorrynotsorry

We had probably 25 people at the bar with us, which made us the really loud, obnoxious table in the place (again, not a novel situation…that’s pretty typical). AND here’s where I lend a huge shout-out to Raven for slaving away over cherry tomatoes to make me my favorite BLT bites. Holy lordy those are amazing. And she made enough for EVERYONE. Even the waitress got her hands on a couple.

I’ll be perfectly honest & admit that I may have been having a little bit TOO good of a time before the movie. I’m not sure how many drinks I had, but I’m certain my adult beverage-to-water ratio was NOT proportionate. And then we made our way to the movie theater, which sells alcohol. I always thought they only had beer, but I discovered last week that they also have margaritas! And they’re surprisingly good – as in, surprisingly strong. After a couple of those, I was feeling REALLY good & officially uncontrollably excited for the movie (have I mentioned that I was REALLY excited to see the movie?). In case you were wondering, we were also the really loud, obnoxious group in the movie theater. BUT we respect the movie, so we calmed down after the previews. We’re not THAT obnoxious. We literally took up 1.5 rows of the theater. It was kind of epic. Our largest movie premier turnout ever (we do this for almost every late-night release).

I’m gonna skip over my thoughts on the movie – partially because this post is long enough already and partially because I might have taken a tiny nap towards the end & don’t feel I should form opinions without re-watching it. We’re going again next weekend 🙂

After the movie, we stood in front of the theater having a lively debate about different aspects of the film before a small group of us headed back to the bar for a nightcap. That’s when this gem happened. Because one of my friends had a freaking Zelda hat in her car. And then I was deemed unworthy of it when I didn’t know what the emblem was called (it wasn’t a tri-force, it was a tri-force surrounded by some stuff & I still don’t know what it’s called). But at least I got one good birthday selfie.

Seems like a good note to end my recap on. Sorry for the random tangents & stuff, but I’m still floating after such a great day. 27 is going to be a good year. I’m gonna take it by storm.

Until Next Time ❤

#introductions

Hi! I'm Christa & I'm obsessed with pretty much everything. I love learning about new things & geeking out over life. I dream of vampires & unicorns. I have a storm trooper tattoo and a reading list that will last me the rest of my life. Also, I can't stop buying makeup. Let's be friends!